Jeremy Page's
latest novel, Sea
Change, was just published by Viking (December
2, 2010). His debut novel, Salt, was a
finalist for both the Commonwealth Writer's Prize and the Jeff First Novel
Award. He previously worked as a scriptwriter and script editor for the BBC
and Film Four. He lives in London with his wife and children.
On your nightstand now:
The Wild Places by Robert McFarlane, which is part meditation and part inspirational love letter to the last wilderness parts of Britain and Ireland; Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson, because it's set in a part of Norway I know very well; and The Arctic Journals of William Scoresby by William Scoresby, the 19th-century British whaling captain, partly for research but also to remind myself how tough a working life can be.
Favorite book when you were a child:
The Hamlyn Guide to Minerals, Rocks and Fossils. I'm only a writer because I'm a failed geologist.
Your top five authors:
Always too hard to answer, because really the list should change each year, and to name specifics seems to do disservice to writers not discovered yet. But my hunting ground tends to be American writers, from the '50s onwards. And not just novelists--some short story writers and poets, too. I read them like I'm having a shot of espresso.
Book you've faked reading:
Proust, like everyone else. I read up to the bit where he tastes the Madeleine cake, miserably early on in the book, then I suspect it made me hungry and I put the book down, never to return. Perhaps I went off to the café in search of my own patisserie. Like Proust, I don't quite remember.
Book you're an evangelist for:
The Rings of Saturn by W.G. Sebald. As with all of Sebald's books, it is a totally unique reading experience. You have to put a bit of work in, but the blend of observation, humour and breadth of subject is astounding. I love the photos, too.
Book you've bought for the cover:
I don't think I've ever done it. Does that make me odd?
Book that changed your life:
Probably Rabbit, Run and the rest of the Rabbit books by John Updike. Before that, I'd never read such a complete and vivid portrayal of ordinary life, full of its flaws and intricacies and minor victories.
Favorite line from a book:
"Let the rumpus begin!" from Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are. It's always the start of a lot of fun when I'm reading to my kids.
I like the line in Hemingway's Islands in the Stream where Thomas Hudson goes down to the bar first thing in the morning, has a couple of cold beers, then the barman says, "Why don't you finish that beer and have a drink."
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
The Great Gatsby. It really is a perfect book, one to read over and over again; it manages to reinvent itself each time it's read.